Radiolab do really cool and interesting podcasts. My favourite so far is their podcast on Mutant Rights: a dispute over whether X-MEN action figures are toys or dolls and which sparks a court case about what it means to be human.

I have recently joined NetGalley where I get a review copy of a book to read through and then review it on my blog. The Salvation of Dr Who is one of those books:

As a fan of Dr Who and looking at culture and christianity I was eager to read this book. It’s a short study guide that is meant to be taken in chunks for a small group setting.

On the offset I think this book has a huge amount of potential. Rawle weaves in themes about Dr Who and links them with Jesus and the bible, which makes a rather interesting read. I learnt quite a lot of new things and there were plenty of times where I pondered the themes that came up.

Saying that, I do think the book needs a bit more editing. There were quite a few times where Rawle repeated himself unnecessarily and I felt he could have gone more in-depth on some of the themes. There were also places in the book where it felt disjointed and I felt like I was going from one point to another without any real connection. Other than that I love the idea of this, the cover is awesome and some of the themes that were brought out were really interesting and challenging.

I was so pleased to see this in my local online library. This was a rather fascinating read about how the Great War affected the writing of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien in their well-known books: Narnia Chronicles and Lord of the Rings.

Loconte had done quite a lot of research and it was so interesting as he pinpointed different elements and themes in the books and how they may have been influenced by the author’s experience in the war. He also went into detail about how the war shaped the lives of these men. If you are a fan of the works of Lewis and Tolkien then this is a must read to get a better understanding of who they were and what influenced their writing.